Bluefield Innovations is the collaboration between Deerfield Management and The Johns Hopkins University to catalyze early stage therapeutic development.

Bluefield Innovations announced the acceptance and funding of its first project.

The target, the enzyme RNA polymerase I (Pol I), is implicated in many forms of cancer.

Inventing in the lab of Dr. Marikki Laiho, the Willard and Lillian Hackerman Professor of Radiation Oncology and director of the Division of Molecular Radiation Sciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, the discovery illustrates how cancer cells excessively rely on the Pol I cellular pathway when compared to normal cells.

Dr. Laiho's research indicates that interfering with this pathway kills cancer cells while causing little harm to normal cells.

The acceptance of this project comes just two months after the launch of Bluefield Innovations.

Bluefield will provide scientific, financial and operational support to Dr. Laiho's research, enabling her team to identify the clinical lead molecule and to move that candidate toward human clinical trials.

Ultimately, this support could lead to the development of a first-in-class small molecule drug.

A joint steering committee consisting of representatives from Deerfield and Johns Hopkins selected Dr. Laiho's research to receive the first round of support from Bluefield.

The initial five-year term of Bluefield Innovations will provide support and funding to approximately a dozen of Johns Hopkins faculty and researchers.

A call for applications will take place in the first quarter of 2018.